Van Gogh

“… despite popular misconceptions, few artists were as intelligent, learned, or rational than Vincent [Van Gogh]. As he told his brother Theo in one of his many, brilliant letters, maintaining this composure was a constant struggle: “I am feeling well just now. … I am not strictly speaking mad, for my mind is absolutely normal in the intervals, and even more so than before. But during the attacks it is terrible-and then I lose consciousness of everything. But that spurs me on to work and to seriousness, as a miner who is always in danger and makes haste in what he does.” The “attacks” are there, but van Gogh’s paintings aren’t the product of those attacks; they’re the product of his struggle against them.
from: The Intellectual Devotional, by David S. Kidder and Noah Oppenheim